A tribal leader and his son in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula were shot dead Monday by militants, two days after Bedouin tribal chiefs extended cooperation to the Egyptian security forces to restore normalcy in the lawless border region along Gaza and Israel.

A global hike in food prices last month due to unfavorable weather conditions, compounded by exporting nations placing restrictions and importing nations stockpiling due to concerns over the grain price rally, could lead to a food crisis along the lines of the one that happened in 2007-08, the U.N.'s food agency warned Thursday.

The 2012 Olympics medal count of shame is a list curated by the Wall Street Journal during the London Games which shows that though Britain has done stunningly well when it comes to bringing home gold, silver and bronze medals, its athletes have also had by far the most last, second-to-last and third-to-last performances of any nation this year.

Egyptian military is tightening their grip over the Sinai Peninsula following an attack by militants on Egyptian security officers Sunday which killed 16 guards. The crackdown on the suspected Jihadists in the region has brought to focus the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and the tumultuous conditions in the region caused due to the fall of several Middle East governments.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has dismissed the country's intelligence chief and the governor of North Sinai following a military operation to crack down on suspected Islamic militants in the region Wednesday.

Russia's food security commission on Wednesday ruled out imposing a ban on grain exports, saying -- for now -- concerns that a serious drought will not cause one of the world's largest wheat producers to deliver a worldwide blow to the price of bread.

Egyptian military helicopters launched air raids on suspected Islamic militants in Sinai near the Israeli border on Wednesday, killing more than 20 in Touma village. The aerial attacks were in response to the gunmen attack on Egyptian border police station on Sunday which killed 16 guards.

Armed men opened fire on a security checkpoint early Wednesday in al-Arish, Egypt, on the Sinai peninsula, state media said, three days after 16 border guards were shot dead in an attack on Sunday blamed partly on Palestinian militants.

Even as Egyptian government sources branded the Islamist gunmen who killed 16 policemen in Sinai near the Israeli border Sunday as "infidels," President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party said on its website that the attack "can be attributed to Mossad" and was an attempt to challenge Morsi's administration.

The number of fresh arbitration cases filed with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes last year reached its highest level in four decades, the ICSID said in a report last week.

Egypt's newly appointed Prime Minister Hesham Qandil has announced his cabinet selections, which were represented heavily by longtime state employees and former government ministers, underwhelming expectations of extensive changes in the new government as it facilitates the country's shaky transition to democracy.